GDC: Lessons in iPhone Porting

Mike Pagano, the fast-talking associate producer at EA Mobile, didn't mince words as he addressed GDC attendees eager to hear "The Challenges and Successes of Porting Games to the Apple iPhone."

"How do you design a game to accommodate the world's fattest fingers?" Pagano asked the crowd, in discussing five of EA's ported mobile-to-iPhone games, SimCity, Yahtzee, Spore Origins, Tetris and Monopoly.

Creating games for users who "have fat sausages for fingers" was a key theme for much of Pagano's session, which included three additional tips: 1) See games not as ports, but as adaptations, 2) Keep things simple and sexy, and 3) learn from Apple's lead.